


Radio

by ravenstrange



Series: Save Tonight [6]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Also not taking his shit, F/M, I wanted a cute little music fic and that's what I wrote, Mature only for language, One Shot, The best way to Johnny's heart is through music, kinda fluffy in the way that i am capable of writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:15:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29931219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenstrange/pseuds/ravenstrange
Summary: It appears that music is the one thing they actually agree on.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand/Female V, Johnny Silverhand/V
Series: Save Tonight [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2114709
Comments: 16
Kudos: 80





	Radio

At first, he thinks she’s just playing music to drown him out.

A direct link to a robust and highly specific music library, every time he tries to talk to her (yell at her, more accurately), she just turns the music up to shut him up.

He’d be pissed off, but her music taste isn’t  _ horrible _ .

It’s actually pretty similar to his own, minus some shitty pop songs here and there.

He quickly realizes that she plays music for jobs. It depends on what the job is, but there is always music. She keeps it at a lower volume so she can still hear around her, but there is always a buzzing of  _ something _ .

It makes being in her head a little easier.

For now.

*******

She’s in the middle of going stealth on a mission, something she’s fucking  _ terrible _ at. He expects her to play something quiet, but instead she picks a punk band.

A very old punk band that brings him back to his youth. The music buzzes around in their shared brain, and he doesn’t hide his surprise.

“How the fuck do you know this band?”

She ducks behind a crate, watching the scavs in front of her move around. He doesn’t glitch out around her in these missions, knowing it’s a distraction. “This is one of my favorite old albums, don’t you fucking—”

“--if you fuckin’ say any song other than ‘Waiting Room’ is your favorite by them, I’ll flatline you myself.”

Her mood shifts rapidly from annoyed to amused.

He can feel her grinning, as she pops out of hiding behind the crate and yells at the scavs to notice her. As all their attention is on her, she loads her revolver, “The  _ best _ song, that’s a hill I’ll fuckin’ die on, Johnny-boy,” as she starts taking out the scavs running at her.

The song turns up and is put on repeat.

*******

There are a lot of things they do not see eye to eye on. He doesn’t see the point in putting other people’s needs before herself. She doesn’t see the point to waging a war on the corps when she’s just trying to survive. She’s selfless where he’s selfish, and they clash constantly – only she’s capable of going into a dollhouse and walking out with a fucking  _ therapy _ session.

What they do agree on is that 'Don't Stop Believin' is overrated, but 'Ask the Lonely' is fucking fantastic.

But karaoke on  _ anything _ is forever a no.

Another thing they agree on.

*******

At his request, she’s started to collect vinyl records that she finds. Most of them are more recent musicians, and even his solo albums she finds lying around (“Look! They’re using it as an ashtray!  _ How fitting _ ”). She’s got quite a collection now. Almost rivals what his used to be when he was alive.

“Jus’ sayin’ that some shit sounds better the old fashion way. Makin’ shit digital ruins a lot of the grit.” He can feel her amusement, and that annoys him. “What? Know ‘m fuckin’ tellin’ the truth, V.”

“Oh, go  _ analog _ , baby, you’re  _ so _ post-modern,” she snaps back, with a toothy grin.

The recognition is instant, like a lightbulb going off in his head, and he knows she sees it.

“Prototypical non-conformist,” he flips her off with a matching grin.

*******

“Most of my music taste comes from being bored,” she tells him one day when she’s cleaning out her weapons. She listens to low-fi beats when working in the armory, because it doesn’t distract her from singing the lyrics at the top of her lungs.

And she’s got a great set of lungs, he wonders what she’d sound like singing any of his songs. And why he’s never heard her sing any of them at all.

“ _ Bored _ ?”

“The music they play on the radio isn’t always to my taste. It’s why I only stick to Morrow Rock if I’m listening to it at all.”

“Bored enough to hunt out music decades old? Got a lot of time on your hands there, V?”

The moment the words leave his lips, he feels her tense up. Her hands still, she puts down the gun she was cleaning on the table. He stays where he is leaning against the wall in her armory, and she keeps her back to him.

“I did have time. Before.”

He glitches away after that, ignoring the way that it can’t be possible for his mouth to feel dry when he’s just a bunch of code.

*******

The next job she does, she doesn’t play any music. Instead, he can hear her mind buzzing with everything she had left to do, and how she doesn’t have enough time to do it.

She’s stuck in her head, and it’s going to get them both killed.

She’s not listening to him, and he’s desperate. If she won’t listen to him, maybe she’ll listen to something else.

When he realizes he can interface with her music, that’s it.

‘Sympathy for the Devil’ plays through the music link, and it’s enough to put a bounce in her step, to get her up and moving, fighting to and with the music. It’s a violent dance but she seems like his little chaotic merc again.

Relief isn’t something he had felt a lot of, but it’s something he feels now. When the enemies are dead and she’s heading to drop off the information she gathered, she turns the music off.

And with a smile, plays ‘Chippin’ In’.

*******

Every boxing match she goes into, he immediately starts playing ‘Eye of the Tiger’.

She tells him she hates him for it, but she wins every time he plays the song.

When she wins the last match with the song blasting in her ears, he’s smug as she rolls her eyes at him. “The song had nothing to do with me winning!”

“Sure, V.”

*******

“Paul or John?”

“Paul.”

“Beatles or Rolling Stones?”

“Stones.”

“Nirvana or Pearl Jam?”

“Foo Fighters.”

“That’s cheatin’, not even--.”

“So? You know why I said it.”

“One more. Kerry or me?”

“Us Cracks.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

*******

She doesn’t wear his jacket, but she wears his tags. She tells him she wants the jacket in good condition for him when they both get out of this alive. He doesn’t feel like fighting her on it, because he also likes to pretend that they’ll both make it through.

He wears a digital image of her bullet necklace, in solidarity. They’ve never spoken about it, but they don’t need to.

She blasts Morrow Rock on the radio as she rides Jackie’s bike through the city and screams along to his voice when Samurai comes on the radio. She does it because she knows he’s listening to her, and she knows he enjoys listening to her actually  _ understand _ what he was going for.

He wonders what she’d be like in the audience with him on stage. Watching her, playing only to her, the rest of the crowd just fading away. She would be the only one who understands the music, she’d be singing his lyrics back at him. She would be all he looked at, all he wanted. He’d invite her backstage, but they wouldn’t have time for words. He’d kiss her hard, lift her up in his arms, fuck her against the wall until she sang out his name with those powerful lungs of hers.

He’s not exactly hiding his thoughts from her.

He knows this, because she almost drives right into a wall, and curses at him for distracting her.

As payback, she listens to nothing but Us Cracks for the rest of the night, and he half-heartedly bitches the entire time.

*******

Her nose is bleeding, but it’s not from a relic malfunction. It’s because he distracted her when an Animal went to punch her in the face.

Specifically, it’s because he played one lyric over the music link so loudly that she burst out laughing and the Animal thought she was laughing at  _ them _ .

Now she’s glaring at him, and he cannot stop laughing. She throws a rock at him and it phases through, only making him laugh harder.

“But V, come on.  _ I wanna fuck you like an animal _ .”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

*******

They are exactly where he doesn’t want to be.

She’s sitting at the table playing happy little family with the damn cop, and it’s boiling his skin. There’s no music, there’s just the annoying sound of River hitting on her. He’s pacing around, glitching where she can see him, because he wants her to know  _ exactly _ what he thinks.

And he’s pissed this pig cop is trying to get with her. And he’s pissed that he has to be here to see it. And he’s pissed that V is laughing at the dumb gonk’s fucking jokes, flirting with the cop and not  _ him _ . And he’s pissed that he can’t just get V away from here and…

_ Oh fuck. _

He’s jealous.

When he stops pacing and looks at her, there’s a blush to her cheeks. It looks like she’s looking at River, but she’s not. It looks like she’s smirking towards River, but she’s not.

The music floods the link instantly, as she takes a quick glance her way and smirks towards him. She only plays one lyric, and then stops the song.

_ And everybody tells me Johnny is hot, Johnny needs something that he ain't got. _

The cop thinks he’s got this in the bag and invites her up to his water tower.

“You’re a nice guy,” she tells him, as Johnny paces around her car, “But I like my men with more bite in them.”

The cop looks dumbfounded, and she leaves him at the gate. She doesn’t look at Johnny as she makes it to the car, and he glitches in next to her as she drives.

Because the radio gods seem to be listening, or Maximum Mike is just  _ that _ good, ‘Never Fade Away’ screams through the car speakers as they speed away from River’s trailer.

*******

He tells her he has a surprise for her, and he tells her where to go.

They end up in an old warehouse, locked storage as far as the eye can see.

“Need you to find something specific,” he tells her. When she asks why, he doesn’t answer, and no prodding of their mental link gets him to give up the closely guarded secret.

When she finds the right storage and breaks in, he tells her to hit the light switch. He glitches in as he looks over boxes he can’t open, as he tries to find the right one.

“This one. Open this one.”

“Where are we?”

“Jus’ open it, V.”

Box pulled out, opened, and it’s a collection of records. Old ones, out of print, long gone. She lights up, happiness is practically radiating off her, and he kneels down beside her as she sorts through them.

“How’d you know these were here?” She asks, fingers sliding over the albums as she sorts through them.

A shrug, “Put them here. Goin’ on…sixty years ago. Surprised they’re still here.”

“Wait, these are yours?”

He nods, about to say something nonchalant about it all, but she wraps her arms around him in a hug. Both of them startle for a moment, not because of the hug.

But because it’s the first time they’ve realized they could touch without one of them fighting for control.

*******

Records are back at her apartment; they decide on a few ones to play.

She puts the record on, he tells her the story of how he got the record in his collection and why. He smokes as she dances to the music, singing out the songs she knows, listening to him sing when the songs she doesn’t know come on.

It goes on for a few hours, and with each record she plays, the closer she gets as she dances near him. Singing every word that she knows, listening to every word that she doesn’t.

When the latest record stops, he stops her from changing it over. His hand grabs hers, and he hums a tune she likes, one she knows.

She turns to look at him, biting her bottom lip. He can feel what she’s thinking, as she steps towards him.

"Stop makin’ a fool out of me," he quotes with a grin, as he gently tugs on her hand, "why don't you come on over, Valerie?"

V comes over with a grin on her lips and a tune in her head, kisses him until the only music he hears is the soft moans from her.

She quickly becomes his favorite song.


End file.
